The end of the festival is approaching, and there has been shift in the atmosphere in Charlotte Square. Extra journalists have arrived for the last few days of August, and the photographers seem a bit frantic.

I feel a kinship with the crowd in travel events. There's a raw enthusiasm in the Peppers Theatre which I'm sure is created by the shared nomadic instinct in the tent. Rosemary Burnett, who must be the most hard-working chair at the Book Festival, introduces travel writers Lucy Popescu and Patrick Richardson.

Richardson, an old-school backpacker of the sort I fear will never exist again, reads to us from his thrilling travel book Reports From Beyond, the story of his chance meeting with Jorge Ruiz Borges in an Argentinian lecture theatre. It was the 1970's, and Richardson, then an impetuous young man, had crossed the border from Bolivia into an Argentina which was - at the time - controlled by a military junta. A strange chain of events led to Richardson meeting Borge, a man he admired unreservedly, and learning that he was a mouthpiece for a conservative regime. The story reveals both the person Richardson was then and the strange nature of travel; the set of coincidences which lead to the unexpected, and ultimately to the next journey.

Popescu reads to us from her book on sustainable tourism, which advocates the responsible side of travel. The book matches popular holiday destinations with human rights abuses in the same countries, and the steps a traveller can make to affect change in these area. Popescu highlights issues such as freedom of expression in Egypt and Syria, child labour in Uzbek cotton fields whose products mainly end up on the European high street, the great firewall of China and the major western corporations who support it, abuse of women and children in Mexico and murder of journalists in Russia and Chechnya.

During questions, Popescu asserts that the popular tour guides have some way to go in highlighting human rights issues, but points out that travellers are becoming more knowledgeably about ethical travel. Richardson tells us that, although he feels travel should be open to everyone, he is concerned about the hedonistic nature of travel, particularly the backpacker scene in some parts of the world which ignores the experience of travel.